Product Details

• Actors: Rachel Miner, Shawn Hatosy, Michael Pea, D.J. Qualls, Erica Leerhsen
• Directors: Tom Zuber
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Legaci / ThinkFilms
• DVD Release Date: November 21, 2006
• Run Time: 105 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000HC2OD2
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #309,385 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

LITTLE ATHENS - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finding life in a lifeless town, December 13, 2006

By 

larry-411 (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Little Athens (DVD)

This excellently-crafted film follows the lives of a group of post-high school graduates (or dropouts), late teens and early twenty-somethings for whom college is not an option. There are 4 stories which proceed independently of each other, occasionally passing off the baton from one to the next, but eventually all coming together.

Little Athens is a slice of life in a relatively lifeless environment -- a small town called Athens, but it could be any small town just about anywhere. Certainly, anyone who grew up in such a place knows it well. There isn't a whole lot to do. So you do what you can to get by. These characters' lives are about who you're dating, used to date, or would like to date, who you're cheating on and who's cheating on you, who's doing drugs and who's selling them, getting jobs and getting fired, getting into trouble and staying out of trouble, and trying to figure out who you are in a town where nobody amounts to much unless you leave. Stay and you're stuck, so you may as well make the best of it. In a town with no rock concerts, no sports arena, no dance clubs, no mall, and no multiplex, there's no drama. And when the drama doesn't exist without, you create it from within. Nature abhors a vacuum, so these young people fill the void by creating their own conflicts, because it's so much easier to be discontent than not.

If it sounds sad, well, where there's pity there's sympathy. And where there's sympathy there's comfort. We know these people. And that cuts to the heart of what makes this film what it is -- this brilliant young cast does what good actors are supposed to do -- they make these characters real. You never get the feeling that this is scripted, or has been rehearsed -- and the camera similarly stays out of the way.

Most of the film is shot in widescreen 35MM, as if to emphasize how small these characters are set against the bleak landscape of this town. We are watching them from a distance, just observers, taking it all in and allowing us to slowly invest ourselves in these people. The last portion of the film uses hand-held 16MM, as the four separate story lines come together towards the climax of the film. Now we are there, with them, because now that we know them we are allowed into their world.

The aspects of the film which stand out the most in my mind are the performances and the music. The acting is just spot on. It's always hard to single anyone out in an ensemble cast, but John Patrick Amedori's Jimmy is arguably the most sympathetic character in a film where you tend to feel sorry for everyone. He's perfectly cast -- the story had to have one sometimes sad but hopeful puppy-dog, and he's it.

The other highlight for me was the music, but that's always my weakness. After the acting and the soundtrack comes Tom Zuber's intricate story, told with the luxury of one able to write it, produce it, direct it, and edit it. He should be extremely proud of this work.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Dynamics of Small Town Boredom: A Metaphor?, January 2, 2007

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Little Athens (DVD)

Tom Zuber has great credentials in Law but seems to prefer to dabble in the territory of cinema. Having not seen his debut film LANSDOWN (2001) it is difficult to judge from LITTLE ATHENS (2005) if he is improving with age, but looking at LITTLE ATHENS on its own merits it seems a bit sparse in idea and in production.

Athens, Arizona is the bleak setting of this day in the lives of some fairly bored (and boring) youngsters, ne're-do-wells attempting to infuse sparkle into an otherwise glitterless place. Zuber creates four story lines, spottily interweaves them, and finally connects the dots in the last reel. The main problem is that comedy is funny because we care about the facilitators and here there really aren't any folks in which to invest. The cast tries hard and succeeds in giving us a taste of life in the flatlands of nothingville. D.J. Qualls (a character type who is very good, as in 'Hustle and Flow'), Michael Pena, John Patrick Amedori, Shawn Hatosi, Tory Kittles, Eric Szmanda, Jorge Garcia, Erica Leerhsen, and Michelle Horn are particularly fine and do their best with the material they are given.

Tom Zuber has a style, a sense of non-scripted spontaneity incorporating the gross with the sadsack, and given time he may make a fine little film. This one just misses. Grady Harp, January 07

4.0 out of 5 stars heard the story before but kept me glued to the screen, November 29, 2009

By 

Margaux Paschke - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Little Athens (DVD)

This film starts with a blurb about how this story might take place in the titled town but that it could just as well have been anywhere. We have watched this movie before about a group of young kids struggling to find their place in life but this movie managed to keep my attention glued to the screen.

The plot might have been tired but the great acting and soundtrack makes this little film stand out from the rest. We meet one young man who is being given a second chance by serving community service instead of time after being convicted of robbery. But when we discover that he got caught because his car ran out of gas in front of the victim's house and he attempted to return the stolen property, we know things are not going to go well. The film makes a point with music and by stretching out the scene to highlight morally defining moments.

We all know what is going to happen in this movie but the paths taken were interesting to watch. I would highly recommend this film over others in the same genre. The great soundtrack helped too.